Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Her flight home to New York wasn’t until that afternoon. Hopefully, he’d do both. She wet her lips and sank in the possibilities.
Brinton slipped his University of Tennessee T-shirt over her head, grabbed her phone, and bounded down the stairs. She wanted to be with him when she saw the headline for the first time.
Jamie was on the couch, his shirtless shoulders striped with the first beams of morning sun. Golden waves tousled and beautiful as ever.
She slowed her tempo, then slid next to him. “The article’s out. Shall we pull it up?”
He didn’t look up, but stared at his own phone in his hands.
“I saw it,” he said, voice more distant than she’d ever heard it.
When her fingertips brushed his shoulder, he finally looked at her. His eyes were cloudy, like he hadn’t slept. The corners of his lips lifted, but something drowned his attempt to commit.
“What’s wrong?”
“You should pull it up.”
She did. At the top of Landmark’s website, in bold black letters, read:
Preview: Jamie Crawford Jr. and Brinton Shaw, everyone’s favorite Grammys couple, reunite for a groundbreaking confession.
Brinton blinked at her glowing phone screen to ensure it wasn’t a mirage. Yes, the headline was a little click-baity. It wasn’t what she had submitted to Rich, which focused on Jamie’s fresh start, not their internet stardom. However, seeing the article, out in the world, meant everything.
She finally had something to show for all the years she had languished in the margins.
“Holy shit, Jamie.” She kicked her feet and squealed. “We did it.”
His smile had collapsed and body remained rigid. “Scroll down to the comments.”
She did what he asked, reading in silence.
Gobbling D for another headline?
Stop trying to make them happen. That bitch is nasty. #NotMyCouple
Jamie would never date a n—
Brinton stopped reading. Even at seven in the goddamn morning, the bigots were gonna bigot. But she knew this was coming, and she’d deal with it. Eventually. She closed her eyes, and swallowed it down, because it didn’t matter.
It shouldn’t matter.
“Ouch,” she said lightly, hoping to make him smile that smile that lit up her entire world. “Good thing our website manager has a block button. He’ll clear out all those comments and—”
Jamie turned to her, took her hands. “Brinton, honey. I—”
His voice cracked with emotion, like it pained him to keep going. Why wasn’t he happy?
He exhaled, shoulders slumping from the force. “We can’t do this.”
She squeezed his hands tighter, her sincerity a pickax to his heart. “I don’t—Jamie, what’s going on?”
“Sweetheart, we can’t be together,” he continued, still unsure if he was in a nightmare.
But he had to do this.
“I can’t let you be villainized again for my benefit. Look at that headline, look at those disgusting comments. Every amazing, beautiful thing you’ll do in your career will be poisoned by me. They’ll chew you up and spit you out. You don’t deserve that.”
His phone buzzed, but he ignored it.
She rubbed her thumbs across his knuckles. Slowly, he pulled away, even as he’d rather take a dagger to his abdomen than to let her go. “This is the only way you get the career of your dreams. I know how important that is to you.”
“Jamie, please.” Her eyes were stretched and her voice wavered. “Being with you is my choice. You promised me that you wouldn’t make decisions on my behalf. We agreed—”
“I know. But baby, don’t you see? This is my decision to make. I’m trying to help you, like you helped me.”
She shot up from the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around her ribs, as if that were all that kept her from collapsing. “But—I thought you cared about me?”
He rose to meet her frantic eyes. His sprouted fresh tears, but he didn’t wipe them away. It wouldn’t change how the glorious thing that had saved him had to end.
“More than you can ever know, Bee. I think I lov—”
His voice was anemic, devoid of the confidence needed to say those three words. There was no doubt that he loved her, he finally knew, because he wouldn’t be willing to let her go otherwise. So that she had a chance to live the full life she deserved, outside fame’s punishing glare.
Jamie’s mother never got that chance. She wasn’t protected, and he still lived with that pain every day. Telling Brinton that he loved her would only muddy this disaster, which he dragged her into by asking for her help and selfishly falling for her.
“Are…you ashamed of me?” she asked, voice weakening by the second.
Jamie stumbled backward at the accusation. He didn’t trust himself to be the man she needed, in a world hell-bent on tearing them apart. She deserved a clean break, even as he ached to press her trembling body into his.
“Honey, please—”
“Did you ever care about me?” she sputtered.
Ringing panic blared between his ears, making it difficult to fucking think. If he ignored his gut and they stayed together, it would only be a matter of time before the reality of being in a relationship with a musician set in: ruthless chatter and infinite late nights and unpredictable days.
Brinton, as strong as she was, would weather much of it alone, as his mom did, while he was God-knew-where making a name for himself. He couldn’t risk repeating his father’s mistakes.
But if Jamie let Brinton go—the right thing—he’d lose her forever too. There was no way to win.
“Were you using me?” she asked, breaths ragged.
He slumped back on the couch, hands cradling his forehead. It disgusted him, but the only way she’d choose herself was if she hated him. She’d never accept this if she didn’t. Regret clawed up his spine as he did what he had to.
“I only needed you to tell my story.”
More than his songwriting grift or that Heartbreak Prince ruse, this was his most unforgivable lie. “Michael should be outside to take you to the airport.”
She shut her eyes, like she could burst from her resistance. “How could you lie to me, for all these days?”
Next to him, Jamie retrieved a thick stack of papers. His songwriting contract. “Take this, for your article.”
She batted them away. “I don’t want these.”
“You have to, Brinton—”
Jamie’s phone buzzed again, but he threw it across the room. It ricocheted off his mantle, sending his Grammy tumbling to the hardwood. Served it fucking right.
They both stared at the mangled statue, the gramophone cracked and severed from its base.
With a trembling hand, she snatched the packet from him.
Her chest was heaving by the time she raced upstairs to retrieve her things.
He wanted to reach for her, but it was like sand slipping through an hourglass.
Against what his heart demanded, he had to let her go.
He stood idly on his porch, tears blurring his vision and stinging his throat, as she slammed Michael’s SUV door.
Jamie was halfway upstairs when the front door swung open. His body throbbed with agony. If it were Brinton, seeing her beautiful face, especially after what he’d done, would kill him.
“Jamie?” It was Sammi. She sounded distressed.
He took the steps two-at-a-time and met her at the door. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, her cheeks flushed. Her mascara was smudged.
“Sam, I already know about the Landmark article,” Jamie croaked. “I can’t get into this right now—”
“Jamie, it’s your mamaw,” she screeched. “She had a bad fall and is in the ICU. Nobody could get hold of you, so they called me. We gotta get to the hospital now.”